I Thought My Childhood Was OK. 20 Years Later, Memories Surfaced

I sat in my local café and Bob Dylan’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” started to play. This hit a nostalgic nerve for me, as he was one of my late dad’s favorite artists. Two days later, Dylan was accused of sexual abuse decades earlier. How poignant this moment was for me.

I want to share my story for three reasons. First, to raise awareness that childhood sexual abuse does happen to boys; second, to show it can happen within families; and third, to state loudly and clearly to the naysayers, childhood sexual abuse can result in total amnesia, not to be remembered for decades.

I grew up in a deprived, impoverished, inner-city district, and it was always drilled into me we were poor. Besides this though — and the schoolyard bullying — I grew up generally thinking I was “OK.” I had food, clothes, annual holidays, and enjoyed getting enough presents at birthdays and Christmas. I mention this because, for a long time, I equated material gifts to being loved, and have only recently realized the emotional detachment that constituted my childhood.

Growing up, my parents had split, but I had a relationship with both of them, as they remained good friends. I wasn’t to know the arguments, screaming, shouting, or fighting with friends that ensued after alcohol-fueled nights, were anything other than normal. Still though, this was life, and I was “OK.”

In hindsight, my teen and early adult years were anything but normal, with emotional outbursts, explosive rage, isolating depression, self-harm, drug and alcohol misuse, and inconsistent emotionality. It wasn’t until 2011, aged 23, whilst going through an emotionally distressing period, that an explosion of unprecedented memory occurred.

I will keep this necessarily vague; the memory was like I was watching a reel of film playing in my head, of myself as a young boy, along with another child, being sexually abused in graphic detail. There were various elements to the memories that arose that night, but one core thing remained afterward: One of the abusers was my dad.

I was not OK.

The next day, I suppressed (intentionally denied) this memory, and it was oh so easy to feel I had simply had a mental breakdown. For five long years after this, I went through periods of having flashbacks, nightmares, on-and-off depression, somatically overwhelming triggers, even moments of clarity when I knew I had been abused, only to return to my belief my brain was faulty (“My dad would never do such awful things”). I convinced myself I was “mentally ill” and these memories were the manifestation of something “wrong” with me. It wasn’t helped at the time, that I clung onto the concept of “false memory syndrome,” which claims false memories of abuse can just spontaneously occur. This wasn’t helpful, but back then, it felt like a lifeline to deny the veracity of the memories, rather than acknowledge they could possibly hold some truth. It is pertinent to say the foundation that propagated the “false memory syndrome” myth has since disbanded.

Over this five-year period (2011-2016), I continued to see my dad, even holidaying in Asia with him on one occasion (experiencing a traumatic period where I experienced intense flashbacks before returning home). Eventually, I spoke to another person I intuitively suspected had also been abused, and in this person confirming their own sexual abuse at the hands of this man, it corroborated the feelings I had at this point been unable to accept.

It was then I finally conceded that there was truth to the memories. My dad had sexually abused me, multiple times, as a young child. I experienced much torment, despair, breakdowns, depression, suicidal ideation, and hospital visits over the following months, as I tried to comprehend what had happened. I ended up homeless, staying at a friend’s, and attempting self-harm and suicide on numerous occasions.

Since then, a number of other people have come forward and also spoke of how my dad had molested them, too (at ages ranging from about 2 to 16). The difference is, they had all remembered it throughout my lives. It had taken me over 20 years to recall anything, which I now believe is due to the “attachment” of the father-son relationship. It would have been too overwhelming for my young brain to understand this betrayal from a primary caregiver, so as an adaptive survival response, the brain dissociates and blocks it from memory.

I also want to point out sexual abuse doesn’t happen in a vacuum. In my case, there was associated emotional neglect and abandonment, and psychological/physical abuse from another adult or “friend of the family.” I say this because it’s important to be aware there are often communities that implicitly allow sexual abuse to happen to children. This is particularly true when the abuser is known to the children and often has close ties with family members/friends involved in the child’s life. Those people who hear rumors and suspect more than they admit, but choose not to get involved, are complicit in child abuse.

While I have no verification for the precise accuracy of the memories themselves (i.e. they are distorted and fragmented), I am completely confident in the truth that my dad abused his son (me) and various other children over a period of many years. It took me a long time to remember, and many more years to accept, but I am now in a process of ongoing recovery with long-term psychotherapy, to try to heal from the many wounds it has caused. I will possibly be in recovery for the rest of my life, but I am also in training to be a therapist myself and can now trust in my memories, instincts, and perceptions. I’ve started to rebuild that lost self-efficacy, and I want others to know even with the deepest of betrayals that defy human nature, there is always the possibility for a way out.

Now, I’m learning to be OK.